NFFE President Assails NSPS at Task Force Public Meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cory Bythrow, Communications Director

Phone: (202) 255-9950

Washington, D.C. – Thursday afternoon, Richard N. Brown, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing 100,000 federal workers throughout government, assailed the controversial National Security Personnel System (NSPS) as ineffective and unsalvageable in the first public meeting of the Defense Business Board Task Group on NSPS.

In his oral testimony, Brown derided the system for its failure to deliver on key objectives set out when it was first authorized.

“While NSPS professes to serve the design principles, such as flexibility, adherence to merit principles, fairness, credibility, transparency, and to link performance to DoD’s strategic plan, I can definitively say that these aspirations have not been met by the NSPS we see today,” said Brown.

Focusing extensively on labor-management relations under NSPS, Brown railed against the system’s alienation of rank-and-file DoD employees and their supervisors, which he said fostered mistrust and hurt the department’s mission.

“An attempt to force NSPS on rank-and-file Defense workers could sour the relationships between various stakeholders and could undermine the possibility of meaningful, worthwhile negotiations and reform,” said Brown. “Although change is called for, we should not mistake that to mean that any change is good. Change for the sake of change is a bad idea. We need to make sure that when a significant overhaul to the system is made, it is the right change, and NSPS is not the right change.”

The public meeting was attended by hundreds of concerned federal employees, many in DoD, who first staged an informational picket outside of the facility before coming together for the task force meeting. As the representative of 45,000 civilian DoD employees, NFFE has witnessed firsthand the detrimental impact NSPS has had on Defense workers. Having failed in its objectives and seriously diminished morale among our nation’s DoD workforce, NFFE believes it is time to terminate the system, and move forward.

“Defense workers have already made up their minds on NSPS; they want it gone once and for all,” said Brown. “I believe that NSPS is unsalvageable, and the best possible course of action is full repeal.”

                              Click Here for President Brown's Oral Testimony